Items Less Than $5 Million

Items Less Than $5 Million is a Navy procurement line for ordnance support equipment and related activities. In the fiscal year 2027 President's Budget, it falls under the Other Procurement, Navy appropriation, Budget Activity 04, Ordnance Support Equipment, and Budget Sub-Activity 6, Other Ordnance Support Equipment. The line brings together several smaller efforts rather than a single weapon system. Its fiscal year 2027 justification identifies two purposes: support for fleet mine countermeasures equipment and procurement of an Automatic Bar Machine for ordnance production.

The line's general equipment mission is to provide non-weapon-system-specific test capabilities at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) engineering field activities. These capabilities assess how aging and environmental exposure affect mines, gun ammunition, missiles, pyrotechnics, demolition devices, bombs, and torpedoes during their in-service lives. Purchases may replace obsolete or economically non-repairable equipment, or add capacity when new evaluation techniques are needed. Much of the equipment is effectively one of a kind. Weapon-specific equipment is initially funded through the relevant program management office; when feasible, this line supports adapting it for use across multiple weapons and ordnance types, reducing the Navy's overall cost.

RA005 Fleet Mine Support Equipment provides Mine Countermeasure (MCM) targets that emulate foreign mine threats for fleet training, exercises, ranges, and platform and system validation. Instrumented targets can be programmed to behave electronically like real threats, supporting mine sweeping and platform validation. Non-instrumented targets reproduce physical characteristics for mine hunting, mine neutralization, and system validation. RA005 is the only aggregated item with an individually displayed fiscal year 2027 funding allocation, continuing support shown in the preceding two fiscal years.

RA003 Industrial Facilities supports industrial equipment at the Government-Owned/Contractor-Operated Naval Industrial Reserve Ordnance Plant, Allegany Ballistics Laboratory (NIROP ABL), in Rocket Center, West Virginia. The facility is identified as a source of tactical missile propulsion systems, fuzes, conventional warheads, metal and composite structures, and precision projectiles under the Defense Industrial Reserve Act. The effort also supports environmental, safety, energy-conservation, and major-repair projects there. The fiscal year 2027 narrative specifically calls for an Automatic Bar Machine to fabricate metal parts for rocket motor and warhead production, replacing shop equipment nearing the end of its useful life to maintain manufacturing efficiency. The aggregated-item schedule, however, displays no fiscal year 2027 cost for RA003 while the line-level justification names the machine.

Maintenance Support Activities consist of earlier-year entries rather than separately funded fiscal year 2027 items. They include RA004 Quality Evaluation Technology and Equipment (QETE), rolling stock procured on behalf of U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFFC), and USFFC ordnance material-handling equipment. Separate USFFC entries cover locomotive replacement and rolling-stock rail cars. Their presence in the aggregated history shows the line's broader use for ordnance evaluation and handling support, but none has an individually displayed allocation in the requested-year schedule.

Frigates Missile likewise comprises earlier-year entries: the RA006 Griffin Missile System (GMS), a GMS initial technical refresh, and other government-furnished equipment for the FFG frigate. Patrol Combatants has a separate earlier-year GMS initial technical refresh entry. The schedule distinguishes these by ship category and purpose rather than treating the Griffin-related work as one current procurement effort. Neither category has an individually displayed fiscal year 2027 allocation.

The fiscal year 2027 request is presented as base funding, with no overseas contingency operations amount. Although the line-level justification discusses both fleet mine support and the Automatic Bar Machine, the aggregated schedule assigns the displayed requested-year cost to Fleet Mine Support Equipment alone. Taken together, the narrative and schedule describe a continuing Navy support line whose current justification spans mine-threat training and validation as well as the efficiency of rocket motor and warhead manufacturing.